Last week, I noted that I joined Mastodon. My overall recommendation is to join and give it a try. The rest of this post provides some other notes on mastodon after 1 week of usage.
Moved to Fosstodon instance
I originally joined a large “general” instance called “mas.to”. It seemed OK enough, but I wanted a more tech-centric focus, so I switched to “fosstodon”. You can now find me here
https://fosstodon.org/@danhan01010
If you want to switch instances, I’d recommend doing it early. It’s easy to transfer your follows and followers over, but migrating posts over isn’t done automagically for you. So, it’s better to re-home early on, when you are OK letting your few posts remain in your old instance.
If you find the idea of instances intimidating and confusing, I hear you. My advice is to spend a very small amount of time reading about it. I’d read one or two of the top Google hits on the subject. Then, just dive in and pick one. After a bit, you will find that your instance is fine, or that you may want to switch. In either case, you learn more by doing than being stuck in decision paralysis.
Decorated my new home
I added a avatar, banner, bio and a link to my website to my mastodon profile. I created the avatar from some free web tool and used google drawing to create a simple banner. Personalizing the default stuff is fun. It’s also more inviting and engaging for others than the default stuff you get.
It’s customary to create and pin an introduction post, but I haven’t done that yet. For now, I’ve only been posting about programming/coding. I’m not sure if I will expand my posts to other parts of my life. I’ll wait until I establish my identity on this platform before setting the introduction.
Tools
I’ve used the web UI, the metatext phone app and even the toot command line tool. I found that all of it worked well. Some things were a little bit confusing, but I blame my own user error and misunderstandings.
I’ve also tried the mastodon-backup tool. It worked out of the box. I’ve still got to figure out how to automate it.
Content
By design, mastodon gives you exactly what you ask for. Your personal timeline will only contain stuff from those you follow or stuff they boost. For newcomers, who are not following anyone, things can feel empty. You can jump to other timelines that have bigger scope, ie within your instance or beyond, but the information may not target your interests.
I could try to search for people to follow and curate the perfect timeline to start, but instead, I’ve decided to focus on posting regularly. I’m aiming to post one toot per day. I’d like to be more of a producer than a passive consumer. If anyone follows me, I’ll follow them back. If you are interested in me, I’m probably interested in your thoughts. It’s simple to unfollow, so there is little cost.
As I run into interesting posts, I’ll follow the posters. Over time, I’m sure I can evolve my follower list to create a rich timeline for me to browse.
Future plans
My plan is the following. Post a thought once per day to mastodon. I think this will force me to publish ideas, even if they are half baked. The goal is to post things without worrying if they are perfect or not. Waiting for perfection has been a blocker for me in the past.
Then, once a week, write a blog post. I can use my recent mastodon posts as inspiration for writing ideas. Hopefully these blog posts are slightly more “baked” than my short mastodon toots.
Hope and dreams
The things I noted above are things I’ve done or will do. The last reason for using Mastodon is for the hope that it can connect me with others. I hope that I engage with some interesting folks and ideas and that we’re all better off for it.
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